Nashville Public Library Digital Collections

Albert Hadley (1920-2012), a native of Nashville, was a renowned interior designer whose clients included Vice President Albert Gore and Tipper Gore, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Diane Sawyer, and the Astor and Getty families. The Albert Hadley Interior Design Collection includes over 800 titles from his personal and professional book collection, as well as sketches and ephemera.

During May 1-2, 2010, Nashville received an unprecedented 13.57 inches of rainfall for a two-day period. Flooding devastated areas throughout Nashville and surrounding counties. The Flood 2010 Digital History Project documents the historic Nashville flood and its aftermath, as told by the people who lived through it. Library staff and volunteers conducted oral history interviews with citizens, city officials, and local organization leaders from different neighborhoods of Nashville. The collection consists of oral histories, still images, videos, narratives, and relief posters.

The Veterans History Project Collection at the Nashville Public Library is the local version of a nationwide project, headquartered at the Library of Congress American Folklife Center. The materials at the Nashville Public Library concentrate on Davidson County veterans of World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf War, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Most of the collection consists of audio-recorded oral histories, but also contains such items as letters, memoirs, photographs, scrapbooks, maps, and other materials which tell the stories of individual veterans through first-hand sources.

The Charles Warterfield Architectural Collection includes 6,302 images (captured between 1958-1998) that provide a substantial body of documentation in regards to historic Tennessee architectural achievements; therein, particular attention was given to Nashville. Charles Warterfield, Jr. (1926-1998) began his career in 1953 as a draftsman for restoration of the TN State Capitol, and later oversaw the interior restoration of the Capitol during 1987-88. In addition to contributions that made historic zoning possible in Nashville, Warterfield was a member of the master planning team for the Bicentennial Mall project, and chairman of the Metro Historical Commission from 1977-1981.

The Nashville Banner Archives consists of the newspaper’s entire morgue: clippings, photos, negatives, books, as well as many awards and artifacts from the final sixty years of the Nashville Banner. Donated by co-owners Irby Simpkins and Brownlee Currey after publication ceased on February 20, 1998, the Nashville Banner Archives offers a detailed corporate history alongside a robust history of Nashville during these important 20th century decades.

Over 15,000 postcards, color and black & white, including some art prints and photocards. While the collection includes cards from many U.S. states and some foreign countries, the emphasis is upon Nashville and Tennessee scenes of the twentieth century, among which are Nashville street scenes, businesses, colleges and universities, homes and parks. The art prints include cartoons, greeting cards, and oversized postcards.

The items were collected with a strong interest in the development of the modern civil rights movement and its impact in American life. The digital collection serves as a classic work in the modern civil rights history as well as contemporary resources. The focus of the collection presents primary sources that document the leadership and contributions the city of Nashville made to the national civil rights movement. These efforts are vividly documented in photographs, text documents, oral histories, ephemera, periodicals, records and manuscripts of those who sought to revolutionize America.

The Nashville City Cemetery Lot Cards provide burial information by lot. Information includes the lot owner, lot location, and the date when the lot was purchased. Names of those buried on each lot is given and is often accompanied by a plat map showing the location of each grave. The data on the cards was obtained from sources including interment records and a 1908 listing of existing tombstones and monuments.

The Limited Editions Collection includes over 800 books, dating from 1929 to the present, most published by the Limited Editions Club and Arion Press, as well as separate portfolios of some of the fine artwork that illustrates many of the beautifully-bound books.

The Metropolitan Government Archives, a division of the Nashville Public Library, collects and preserves the historically valuable records of Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County, as well as other records of historical or documentary significance reflecting the history of our city. The Archives has over 5 million records dating from the 1780s to the present.